The death shroud proc(whether haste or mastery) doesnt depend on raid buffs for which procs. its your baseline rating before buffs. so as long as you have 1 more point in your base line haste rating then mastery you will get haste proc. I have tested this in game maybe the sim has it different?

What exactly is the proper way to gem/reforge when getting into near bis gear with a 2 hander? I was under the impression Unholy and 2H Frost had very similar stat priority (crit/mast) but lately I have been seeing 2h frost players gem straight strength and reforging heavily into haste.

Also do you think Unholy needs a buff? Comparing Unholy to DW via WoL it seems pretty clear DW is ahead by large margin

What exactly is the proper way to gem/reforge when getting into near bis gear with a 2 hander? I was under the impression Unholy and 2H Frost had very similar stat priority (crit/mast) but lately I have been seeing 2h frost players gem straight strength and reforging heavily into haste.

Sim your own char, get your own stat weights, use them.

Originally Posted by Mang

Also do you think Unholy needs a buff? Comparing Unholy to DW via WoL it seems pretty clear DW is ahead by large margin

There are loads of fights where DW does unnecessary cleave damage and therefore skews log comparisons. DW and UH are rather close atm.

There are loads of fights where DW does unnecessary cleave damage and therefore skews log comparisons. DW and UH are rather close atm.

Also, most players play the top spec leading to unholy not having as high skilled/geared players parsing as frost does. This obviously leads to a larger dps difference shown on top logs than it actually is. You'd need to compare people with similiar gear and skill levels.

So i decided to dust off my death knight to play a little. I decide im going to try unholy as i play this spec through ds and got good fun with it. However im confused in terms of gemming and reforging. Last time i played on my dk haste was king. Now im checked some guides and everybody said crit. However i heard crit is good at certain item elvel. Here's my dk, as you can see she's low geared. Is crit still best stat for me, or it's something else ?

Also, most players play the top spec leading to unholy not having as high skilled/geared players parsing as frost does. This obviously leads to a larger dps difference shown on top logs than it actually is. You'd need to compare people with similiar gear and skill levels.

That's a nice cop out. Any one who plays Unholy must have shitty gear.... Yeah, right... Go armory some of the top players on WoL. It's very clear the gear is very similar to dw players. As for low skill... pretty sure I saw a Method DK playing Unholy, I'll assume he's not bad...

That's a nice cop out. Any one who plays Unholy must have shitty gear.... Yeah, right... Go armory some of the top players on WoL. It's very clear the gear is very similar to dw players. As for low skill... pretty sure I saw a Method DK playing Unholy, I'll assume he's not bad...

Oh my god please no. It's a fact that not as many top players play unholy as DW, which is why I said "most players". And yes gear might be similiar but 90% of the top parsing players on WoL are frost (and yes statistics like this one are made up on the spot).

Mang, all he's saying is that with this large of a difference in representation, there's a large statistical bias towards Frost, exactly like what happened last tier where there was (probably an even larger) statistical bias towards unholy. The difference between both speccs is probably inferior to what most of us would think due to this. As is being proved by alot of the top DK's using 2hers with dual specc frost / uh, i'm pretty sure it's not just to boost their ilvl =).
Again cementing the fact that people should play whatever the hell they want and get good at that, which will sway their dps meter far more than any FOTM class change will.

What exactly is the proper way to gem/reforge when getting into near bis gear with a 2 hander? I was under the impression Unholy and 2H Frost had very similar stat priority (crit/mast) but lately I have been seeing 2h frost players gem straight strength and reforging heavily into haste.

Also do you think Unholy needs a buff? Comparing Unholy to DW via WoL it seems pretty clear DW is ahead by large margin

It seems like with 2H that you want to go crit, then enough haste to get to a point where you almost always have a move for every GCD without going over, and the rest into mastery. However in BiS gear this does not apply(dont ask me why) you want to go Crit>mastery> haste. Every fight is different (ams soaking and target swaps causing redotting, proccs) so the amount of haste you want is arbitrary. I find that around 10500 haste rating is a good for me at 573 ilvl(good for a 7K dps gain vs Crit>mastery>haste in SimC). However i am interested in simming when SimC is has the 2P proc fixed. I have a feeling that perhaps an optimal amount of haste might be less. Also for regemming I really dont try to gem strength most of my red sockets are expertise crit gems(I am really expertise starved atm), I only have one str crit gem because i hit soft expertise cap and wanted to match socket bonus.

I just read the Frost guide on EJ, great guide! However, it left me with a few questions that have been bugging me, that maybe you Mendenbarr, or someone more knowledgeable than I could answer.

One, for DW, I noticed you said to almost never use Outbreak to apply diseases, which I assume is so you'll get the extra RP from using PS/HB. However, would that include using it during your opener for a boss fight? Or would you still want to use PS/HB there for diseases.

Second, also for DW, you mentioned to use Plague Leech to regain runes, I assume that's also to just reapply your diseases and get some RP out of it?

Finally, I noticed in the Icy Veins guide it mentions to use Rune of Razorice on your MH, and Fallen Crusader on your OH, while in your guide it says the opposite. Is there a reason both guides might have different opinions on that? Or is Icy Veins simply just wrong, or not updated, or something like that?

Finally, I noticed in the Icy Veins guide it mentions to use Rune of Razorice on your MH, and Fallen Crusader on your OH, while in your guide it says the opposite. Is there a reason both guides might have different opinions on that? Or is Icy Veins simply just wrong, or not updated, or something like that?

It used to be Fallen Crusader on OH and Razorice on MH in the past, so my guess is Icy Veins being outdated.

Also, most players play the top spec leading to unholy not having as high skilled/geared players parsing as frost does. This obviously leads to a larger dps difference shown on top logs than it actually is. You'd need to compare people with similiar gear and skill levels.

Can't really think of any fight where cleave damage is useless this tier, with the exception of Paragons.

Stay on topic please, this isn't a discussion on spec balance, but a way for people to get answers to questions.

Originally Posted by Underskilled

I just read the Frost guide on EJ, great guide! However, it left me with a few questions that have been bugging me, that maybe you Mendenbarr, or someone more knowledgeable than I could answer.

One, for DW, I noticed you said to almost never use Outbreak to apply diseases, which I assume is so you'll get the extra RP from using PS/HB. However, would that include using it during your opener for a boss fight? Or would you still want to use PS/HB there for diseases.

Second, also for DW, you mentioned to use Plague Leech to regain runes, I assume that's also to just reapply your diseases and get some RP out of it?

Finally, I noticed in the Icy Veins guide it mentions to use Rune of Razorice on your MH, and Fallen Crusader on your OH, while in your guide it says the opposite. Is there a reason both guides might have different opinions on that? Or is Icy Veins simply just wrong, or not updated, or something like that?

I don't use outbreak in my opener anymore, unless we have to start way way out of range of the boss. I open with army, start running in, RD, HoW/Pot, PoF/HB, and then PS, then follow with normal rotation.

DW is more limited by GCD cap then runes, so you don't want to use PL willy nilly. Using it right before BP falls off isn't that important, you want to use it whenever you need the runes. Think of it as a weaker ERW with a shorter CD.

I'm the consultant for Icy Veins, so it's my fault for not updating it, but yea it's wrong ATM. TBH, it doesn't really matter, there is literally like a 50 dps gain by swapping to FC on MH, but it is supposed to be FC on MH. Hope this answers your questions!

It prevents the application of the nature DoT during thock's bat phase on heroic, it prevents the application of superheated when walking through fire on siegecrafter, it prevents the application of the DoT from the green fire from xaril on paragons, and that's pretty much it. AMS has fewer opportunities to cheese mechanics in previous tiers, possibly because it made dks more valuable than intended, or perhaps it was simple an oversight, but still has a lot of use for both absorbing magic damage, and generating free runic power throughout SoO. A rough list of AMS uses can be found at http://forums.elitistjerks.com/index...e_of_Orgrimmar

Hi Mendenbarr, I appreciate all of your theorycrafting work and wanted to ask you a question. With the HWF Evil Eye, the cooldown on AotD is reduced to 6.67 minutes, which does make it theoretically possible to use twice on some fights. Assuming the following conditions:

Bloodlust was used on the pull and will not be up again during the fight, so the second AoTD will not benefit from this.

The second AoTD will be able to attack the boss for their full duration

Just to give them the benefit of the doubt, let's say we can line up our second potion and a PoF for them after they are up. No trinket procs though. Let's just give them whatever is under our direct control.

Rather than channeling AoTD, I could have used those 3 runes (let's say 2 Death and 1 Unholy) & GCDs (4 seconds to channel AoTD) to attack the boss myself.

Is it worth using AotD twice during a fight?

Last edited by Coal; 2014-01-01 at 01:23 PM.
Reason: I did math and figured out the other answers.